496 Responses

Apropos keeping water: wierd as it seems, every so often Big O (rainfall 3 metres + yearly)runs out of drinking water (generally, because of lagoon flooding - which salts the spring from whence we pump water for the 30,000ltr. community tank.)

So, I always keep 12 litres to hand. I simply replace each 4 litre container as I use it - and the exigencies of flooding and/or power cuts, mean this is every fortnight or so.

I dont worry about water for loos etc. as I have a spare 400 ltr. tank (rainwater-filled.)

There are useful instructions for making sure your stored water doesnt turn into an antibiotic farm (heh! Thanks Giovanni!) on the CD site, and Kyle's suggestion about changing your supply at the same time as you change smoke-alarm batteries is A Really Good Idea.

So I wonder if water purification tablets are more useful. Because how many people are going to remember to keep changing the water?

Thsi is where the my chest freeze comes in handy. I have collected a shit load of milk bottles and washed them thoroughly (!!), filled them with nice clean water and frozen them. They are now sitting quietly in the bottom waiting...waiting..

When the wait is over, they will stay there keeping my freezer cold. Utilising their glorious specific heat and latent heat of freezing stashed inside a nice insulted box. Which, incidently, the family are well trained to ensure spare blankets are packed around it and newspaper put underneath it. I can take out fresh water and thaw it as the need arises.

Then I can sneak stuff out of my frozen larder and feast on meats, veges and other goodies that I have accumulated. BBQs here we come!

There are thermal springs near Tai Tapu & Governers Bay. I don't buy the extinct line.

There are many thermal springs not associated with volcanoes ancient or modern – Morere hot springs for example near Gisborne, nothing significantly volcanic within 100 km.

It’s the geothermal gradient – those trapped Chilean miners are sweating because it’s 30-something degrees down there 700 metres underground. In a few quirky places, heated water from such and greater depths makes its way to the surface. In most the flow and the temperature aren’t enough for a good winter soak, but there are splendid exceptions.

Volcanoes too have their entrances and their exits, and 5 million years is a long time dead even on the lifespan of a big volcano. The world has kind-of literally moved on since then. If there's another in the Banks Peninsula family of volcanoes in the next few million years, it will probably pop up somewhere else.

There are thermal springs near Tai Tapu & Governors Bay. I don't buy the extinct line.I've heard of these, but never found 'em. Any clues!? A thermal spring would be a grand way to spend a winter's evening.

Hanmer Springs are not volcanic, heated by fault/plate pressure as I understand it (so maybe not so reassuring)...

Ticking off the boxes...

stashed inside a nice insulted box.

I must try this, what are the best insults to use?- "Chill out ya square!"- "Call your self white ware?"- "You are frigid dear!"

just slightly before 7 days to the minute and[http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.html]

NZST: Fri, Sep 10 2010 10:04 pm# Magnitude: 4.3 and once again we watched each other to see if we needed to develop our response into something more protective.

one 14y one 17 & 2 parents one concious & one exhausted...

everyone has a torch a phone, 2-3 hiding places, 2 escape routes and a safe house if out when another mean one hits. Mostly someone awake...Wonder about leaving again the city... bailing think about going back to school on Monday...

Just thought I'd say don't have to know you to tell you this is not pleasant

The thing is we should not live here!! is the overriding feeling.Once again waiting to see if girls settle... the most interesting thing for me is when that 7.1 hit for the first time in my life I knew we were it...

Effective nevertheless Amanda - but I'm sorry you got no sympathetic response in the night, instead from an early riser from where the birds have already finished greeting the new dawn.

If your house is OK enough now I guess that means you're not in the worst liquefaction zones. The aftershocks seem to be tailing off implying much reduced likelihood of fundamentally bigger ones to come (a credible expert yesterday said now only 10% likelihood), so soon your Christchurch will return to the 'somewhat lower risk of catastrophic earthquake damage than many other places' sort of place that it was.

But I guess that 'always darkest before the dawn' crap doesn't help with the stress of living through it day by day. Best wishes to your family for the days to come.

Hi All. Here are some great fact sheets in plain English from a disaster psychologist (Dr Sarb Johal) that give great tips on how to work through the huge range of emotions and behaviours that are normal following extreme events such as the CHCH Earthquake and aftershocks. Recognises that everyone processes these things differently and some people need a bit more help to feel better.

Great for helping yourself, children, teenagers, friends, other relatives etc. Just scroll to the bottom of the homepage on the link below and you will see a list of fact sheets (only a couple of pages each) to download with great tips that explain clearly why and how people process the stress caused by disasters and ways to work towards feeling better. Separate ones for dealing with children's stress, for volunteers, for helping yourself and so on. please pass on to anyone you know who needs a bit of support. Cheers

There's a really great article by Philip Matthews in the Press, on how the quake news unfolded. Manages to be informative, funny, and humane at once.

I'm a wee bit embarrassed at being so thoroughly name-checked, for what was just an accident of timing and geography -- but glad to see such a coherent account. And HarvestBird gets the last word :-)

Amanda, thank you so much for checking in - sorry more of us weren't around for a midnight chat. I hope things are brighter in the daytime and/or that your escape plan pans out.

And Kim, that is a very useful link, thank you. So much of what's emerging from Chch is an echo of what it was like to be in NYC nine years ago; the rolling trauma, the jumpiness, the determined coping, the fiercely energetic mucking-in, the falling apart. It's useful to have a set of emotional roadmaps for what is (normally, for most of us) unfamiliar territory.